Narco News 2001

20,000 Masked
Zapatistas in San Cristóbal...

And
They're Off!

Day
One

In La
Realidad, Marcos delivered his arms to Major Moisés

20,000
Zapatistas march in the streets

Caravan
News Briefs Below

By HERMANN
BELLINGHAUSEN

Translated from La Jornada
of Saturday, February 25, 2001:

La Realidad, Chiapas, February 24. The Tojolabal and
Tzeltal comandantes who today left La Realidad stood behind Subcomandante
Marcos as he disarmed his panopoly in front of the eyes of the
press. Many women of the towns cried quietly over the kerchiefs
that cover their faces. They are worred for those who are going,
just like on that night of December 31, 1993.

The long day began at
10:44 a.m. when Subcomandante Marcos delivered his guns and bullets
to Major Moisés, in the presence of hundreds of Tojolabal
peasants, until the night, when at 9 p.m., Jovel, the Royal City
of the Colony, was taken peacefully but convincingly by 20,000
indigenous Zapatistas, maked and hard as gravel, shouting "Marcos!
Marcos! Marcos!", and demanding with voices and banners
compliance with the San Andrés Accords.

From
Heart to Heart

Are-beginning
to take one step more in their demands faces the nation. This
was a special day, historic. With a clamour the indigenous march
for peace began. They go to the heart of Mexico, but also come
from the heart of Mexico. Seven years later.

Just as in the already
not far away first of January of 1994, the indigenous rebels
entered Jovel (San Cristóbal) marching from the other
side of the shadows. Only this time it wasn´t the armed
Zapatistas of the EZLN, but its bases of support, civilians from
the entire indigenous region of Chiapas... The inundation that
occupied the city paralyzed and fascinated it. The Coleta families
watched from seats on the rooves of their houses to see the spectacle
that challenged their prejudices. The indians, again.

Only this time the lit-up
Central Plaza received them, full of people awaiting without
imagining that so many would come. The thousands of people in
front of the Cathedral waited for only 24 Zapatistas and not
the largest mobilization of masses that San Cristóbal
has seen in its history.

...In La Realidad, the
women saw their representatives leave with apprehension and hope.
They go with the charge of convincing the Congress of the Union
to recognize the rights of all the indigenous Mexicans. Comandantes
Tacho, Abraham, Fidelia, Míster, with backpacks on, were
witnesses: Major Moisés took the bullets, one by one,
from the sash of Subcomandante Marcos and put them in a black
bag. Next, he received the rifle and the pistol of the rebel
chief and a strong hug that doubled his stature.

Marcos walked a few steps
toward the journalists, holding up the arms that he had left,
saying: "To make it clear that we comply with the dialogue
law, we are going unarmed...."

Caravan
Newsbriefs

February
25, 2001

Concepción Villafuerte, authentic journalist of San Cristóbal,
accompanied the Zapatista delegates from La Realidad to San Cristóbal
yesterday, while her husband, Amado Avendaño, also authentic
journalist and for six years the "shadow governor"
of Chiapas, is in Cancún organizing against the World
Economic Forum there.

Various senators and deputies from the federal Congress
are accompanying the Zapatista Caravan.

The Zapatistas have named the architect Fernando Yañez
Muñoz, who was arrested, imprisoned and accused by the
government of being "Comandante Germán" in 1995,
as the Zapatista representative to the federal Congress in the
effort to gain compliance with the San Andrés Accords.

Participants in the Zapatista Caravan won't
be required to pay tolls on federal highways during the march,
said the federal office of Roads and Bridges.

Oaxaca Governor José Murat and 30 municipal
presidents along the Zapatista Caravan path have declared a "dry
law" prohibiting the sale of alcohol from midnight to midnight
on Sunday, February 25th. Murat is physically present on the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec overseeing security. A rumor, so far unconfirmed,
was widely spoken of in that state last night that an anonymous
sender of a fax threatening Subcomandante Marcos has been apprehended
in Oaxaca City.

Five-Hundred unarmed members of the Federal Preventive
Police accompany the caravan, along with other various armed
members, in a security operation of the federal government.

115 Non-Governmental Organizations will accompany the Caravan through
the state of Oaxaca.

Best commercial
US Press Coverage: Friday's Los
Angeles Times story on Indigenous Autonomy. It explains the concept of local autonomy. Worst:
Saturday's Washington Post story by Kevin Sullivan. It trivializes
Indigenous demands and attempts to discredit foreign observers
on the caravan as somehow not serious. We wonder how long Mr.
Sullivan would last in the jungle as so many of the observers
have for weeks, months, some of them for years.